Snowden’s Leaks on China Could Affect Its Role in His Fate

The South China Morning Post, a local newspaper, reported on Friday that Edward J. Snowden, the contractor, had shared detailed data showing the dates and Internet Protocol addresses of specific computers in mainland China and Hong Kong that the National Security Agency penetrated over the last four years. The data also showed whether the agency was still breaking into these computers, the success rates for hacking and other operational information.

Mr. Snowden told the newspaper that the computers were in the civilian sector. But Western experts have long said that the dividing line between the civilian sector and the government is very blurry in China. State-owned or state-controlled enterprises still control much of the economy, and virtually all are run by Communist Party cadres who tend to rotate back and forth between government and corporate jobs every few years as part of elaborate career development procedures.

Kevin Egan, a former prosecutor here who has represented people fighting extradition to the United States, said that Mr. Snowden’s latest disclosures would make it harder for him to fight an expected request by the United States for him to be turned over to American law enforcement. “He’s digging his own grave with a very large spade,” he said.

But a person with longstanding ties to mainland Chinese military and intelligence agencies said that Mr. Snowden’s latest disclosures showed that he and his accumulated documents could be valuable to China, particularly if Mr. Snowden chooses to cooperate with mainland authorities.

“The idea is very tempting, but how do you do that, unless he defects,” said the person, who spoke anonymously because of the diplomatic delicacy of the case. “It all depends on his attitude.”

The person declined to comment on whether Chinese intelligence agencies would obtain copies of all of Mr. Snowden’s computer files anyway if he were arrested by the Hong Kong police pursuant to a warrant from the United States, where the Justice Department has already been reviewing possible charges against him.

A Hong Kong Police Force spokeswoman said earlier this week that any arrest would have to be carried out by the Hong Kong police and not by foreign law enforcement. The Hong Kong police have a responsibility to share with mainland China anything of intelligence value that they find during raids or seizures of evidence, according to law enforcement experts.

Patricia Ho, a lawyer who specializes in political asylum at Daly and Associates, a Hong Kong law firm, said that if Beijing decides that it wants Mr. Snowden to stay in Hong Kong for a long time, the simplest way to do so would be for mainland officials to quietly tell Hong Kong’s government officials not to hurry the legal process.

The United States and China have long accused each other of monitoring each other’s computer networks for national security reasons. The United States has also accused China of hacking to harvest technological secrets and commercial data on a broad scale from American companies and transferring that information to Chinese companies to give them a competitive advantage.

Tom Billington, an independent cybersecurity specialist in Washington, said that mainland China could benefit by obtaining a copy of the data that Mr. Snowden gave to The South China Morning Post. The data, if independently verified, could help Chinese officials figure out which computers have been hacked, patch security holes, itemize compromised data, analyze the quality of computer security defenses and develop techniques for hardening other Chinese computers against future surveillance by the N.S.A.

“It certainly would seem valuable data for the Chinese,” Mr. Billington said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/world/asia/ex-nsa-contractors-disclosures-could-complicate-his-fate.html?partner=rss&emc=rss